


A single soul dwelling in two bodies

by kiranosaurusrex



Category: Messiah Project - All Media Types
Genre: Alarmclock!Eiri, Half happy and half sad, Haruki gets mentioned, M/M, Sakai gets mentioned, Souma and Shuusuke being Souma and Shuusuke, poor attempt at character development
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-02-23
Updated: 2017-02-23
Packaged: 2018-09-26 09:33:09
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,339
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/9883316
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/kiranosaurusrex/pseuds/kiranosaurusrex
Summary: Souma reflects on his partnership with Shuusuke.Set between Dou no Shou and Hakugin no Shou.





	

**Author's Note:**

> I had this lying around for forever and finally got around to finishing it.
> 
> The title is the quote from Aristotle that Ichijima uses in Shikkoku no Shou when he talks to Shuusuke and Souma before they move out for the last mission in the movie.
> 
> Dedicated to Team Eggsiah Project.

Getting to know each other was a lot more fun than Souma had thought at first. Getting Shuusuke to open up to him was more rewarding than he’d ever imagined, especially after their first attempt that had been rather botched up, to say the least.

There were many things only he was allowed to see, to experience. Like the other’s rather weird sense of humor (seriously, getting eaten by a bear in the forest? Where had that come from?). Or Shuusuke’s peaceful looking sleeping face.

“I am so forcing him to take a bath in some of Haku’s Nanny when I see him.” Shuusuke’s eyes flew open and they looked like he had been possessed by a demon.

Or Shuusuke’s rather grumpy morning personality . 

Souma sat up on his bed with a groan when he heard Eiri hollering at Haku in the room next door, over the sound of the alarm clocks going off around them. He ran a hand through his hair and decided to get up. Knowing the other pair, he wouldn’t be able to go back to sleep and well there was no point in going back to sleep really because they’d have to be down for breakfast and then training and morning classes in less than two hours anyway.

“Can I shoot him?” Shuusuke sounded genuinely murderous. He sat up on his bed, glasses still off and with his hair sticking up in all possible directions. Not because he’d moved in his sleep but because he’d been trying to block out the noise with another pillow. To no avail.

“You know you can’t, Shuusuke. Or well, no, let me correct that, you technically can but you know you shouldn’t.” Souma chuckled softly. The other looked kind of cute like that. Then, for good measure, he added, “It would be against the rules.”

“It won’t kill him anyway.” At this point, Shuusuke was almost whining defiantly. It most definitely sounded cranky. “Okay, I’ll settle for gagging.”

Still laughing softly, Souma tried his best to sound reprimanding, “Shuusuke.”

“He’s loud! Make it stop!” Now the other was whining for real.

“Look at it this way, we won’t ever need an alarm clock with them around.”

Huffing angrily, Shuusuke muttered, “This one comes without a snooze button and the off button is way too hard to find and sometimes it doesn’t even work. That’s totally against the rules! No it’s even against the law. The laws of nature itself.”

Souma guffawed and tried to keep himself from bursting out laughing because the loud sound would probably only serve to make his Messiah even grumpier than he already was. He thought Shuusuke’s comment was incredibly cute, though. He couldn’t stop himself from reaching out to ruffle the other’s hair, much to Shuusuke’s further dismay. Souma tried to control the damage as well as he could, though. “Let’s get up since we’re already awake. Maybe you can nap at the library after breakfast or something. Before we need to be in class. I’ll be your pillow.”

“This shouldn’t be necessary.” Shuusuke grumbled but let Souma pull him up and out of bed before he reached for his glasses. 

“The library does sound like a good idea, though. I want to return some of these books.” The pile of books on Shuusuke’s table was almost higher than the bedside lamp.

Crossing his arms, Souma asked, “You read incredibly fast. Do you even enjoy your books properly? I know you’re not just reading those ridiculously difficult looking English things but there are also novels mixed in.”

That made Shuusuke blink. “You noticed what kind of books I read?”

Souma shrugged. “You’re not the only observant person around, you know?”

A smile tugged on Shuusuke’s lips. “I should read to you at some point.”

“That would probably help me fall asleep. I’ll take you up on that when I’m not exhausted enough that I pass out immediately.” Souma teased a little bit. Then his expression softened and he offered, “I might not understand much of what you’d try to read to me but I’m always willing to keep you company if you want it.”

The expression on Shuusuke’s face was just as fond, just as gentle. “Your company is always welcome, Souma.” Then he added with with a small smirk, “I shall see it as a personal challenge to find something to read to you that will be interesting enough to keep you awake.”

“I’ll look forward to that.” Souma grinned.

Reading at the library had to wait, though. Their training schedule had been changed drastically and the two of them ended up having to go into the simulation room on empty stomachs. They ended up fighting both each other and themselves until the TIME OVER signal sounded and the simulation shut itself down.

They had been allowed to hit the showers afterwards and once they had washed off sweat and dirt, Shuusuke and Souma decided to head up to the Chinese restaurant for some much needed food. They had ordered large sized portions of several dishes and were in the process of sharing them when the door to the bathroom opened again and revealed two more hungry guests.

“It’s rare to see you here, Shuusuke. No wait, I think it must be a first.” Eiri and Haku walked into the Chinese Restaurant to find Shuusuke and Souma eating there.

“Souma said the food was good.” Shuusuke sipped on his tea. “I think I agree. The fried rice is definitely something I could get used to eating regularly.”

“You two sure changed a lot. Last time we sat here together, Souma still hated your guts and you were a bit of a recluse, Shuusuke.” Eiri smiled at them as he and Haku sat down on the chairs opposite to Souma and Shuusuke at the small table. “It’s showing in your training data as well. Everyone’s saying that you’ll most likely be the next ones to graduate.”

“You checked our training data?” Shuusuke raised an eyebrow. Souma seconded that. Eiri did not seem like the person who kept tabs on other cadets. He didn’t seem like someone who cared too much about training data out of all things. But maybe they were wrong about the other. After all, friendship - or whatever they had since friendship was forbidden among SAKURA, strictly speaking - aside, they did not know much about the other.

Maybe, Souma thought, things were gnawing at Eiri’s pride. The other could be rather proud after all. And maybe it was also because Shuusuke’s and Souma’s development might be a surprise to onlookers as well. Especially compared to their peers.

Eiri was a trained fighter. He was probably one of the few people who joined the Church and SAKURA, who already knew how to perfectly handle a gun. More often than not, he was the one supervising their shooting practice even. And then there was Haku, the prodigy with the photographic memory and a master of disguise. And an old hand at the Church who had taken part in several graduation missions. 

One would have expected for a pair such as theirs to graduate in no time. And yet their training scores trailed behind those of Souma and Shuusuke. Souma, who had been a perfectly normal person with a normal life before he had been forced into all of this. Someone who had never had to fight before in his life, needless to say handle a gun or do any of the other things required of SAKURA. But he had proved to be a fast and incredibly good learner. Shuusuke as well, hadn’t been the most physically apt person or most accurate shooter but he had the mindset to back him up on missions.

Both of them had already been good when paired with their previous Messiah, definitely among the advanced students that Ichijima himself took care of personally. And together, they had formed an entity, a real force to be reckoned with.

It was like two puzzle pieces clicking together and by doing so completing the whole picture. Once Shuusuke and Souma started to work together, everything started to fall into place. They both breezed through training all of a sudden.

With Haruki, the pace had been different. A bitter part of Souma realized that the other must have held him back in order to stick around the Church as long as possible to expose it. Or maybe the other’s lies had been the barrier that had kept them from clicking together quite as well as he and Shuusuke did now. The way they fought was only possible because they trusted each other completely.

He didn’t even know how exactly he and Shuusuke had really found each other. How they had gone from more or less hating each other to being each other’s soulmates.

It had all just happened somehow.

After dinner, Eiri and Haku were called out for their own special training, while Shuusuke and Souma were granted a rare night off. And they decided to redo a few things that they had attempted when they had first been put together.

So a few hours later found them sitting together at the center table of the common area of the Church, two glasses of wine in front of them them.

The wine probably had the colour of the blood they would soon be spilling in even larger quantities than they were already. Maybe it was a little bit of a morbid thought, to drink the blood of your enemies but at the same time, it was an image that was rather fitting.

There were a few differences now, compared to when they had first attempted this. Souma hadn’t had to ask Shuusuke. The other had come on his own. Souma hadn’t forced things, hadn’t forced himself. And Shuusuke, too, had been willing. Another striking difference was the way they were sitting. Instead of opposite from each other, they sat on the same couch, as close to each other as they could get like this, without being in each other’s laps.

The final, big difference, was the silence that hung between them. Last time, they had forced themselves to talk. At least briefly. This time, they didn’t need words to communicate things.

Souma did speak up when their glasses were empty, though. “Shuusuke, there’s somewhere I’d like to go with you. If we’re allowed to leave for a while, will you come with me?”

“Sure?” The way Shuusuke looked at him told Souma that he other was a little worried. Maybe Shuusuke had been able to tell how uneasy Souma seemed to feel by the tone of his voice. The other would understand why that was eventually.

“Okay.” Souma left it at that and then stared off into space for a moment, trying to push the emotions that had welled up inside of him away again. He didn’t quite succeed until he got a little help. Shuusuke pressing his lips against Souma’s in a gentle, reassuring kiss almost made him forget about his previous thoughts again.

As luck would have it, they had a mission outside the city a few days later and were allowed to take their time coming back from it afterwards - or rather than allowed, they were told to do so, in case there would be pursuers. So they took a bunch of detours.

One of them led them to a graveyard at the outskirts of Shin Tokyo. Souma had even bought a few flowers at the station before they had walked up to it.

He maneuvered them through the rows of gravestones easily. He knew his way. And then he and Shuusuke came to a halt in front of a particular grave. There were fresh flowers and incense already. Seeing them made his heart contract painfully.

“This is your grave,” Shuusuke’s eyes widened when he read the inscription.

“The person who lies here was indeed your Messiah. And he is indeed dead. But this was not his name.” Souma put the flowers down. “Ichijima doesn’t humor my wishes a lot but this is one of the times he actually did. I had them put Sakai here. Or whatever was left of him.”

“Why didn’t you-”

“I never found the right timing.” Souma admitted. “And well, thinking about this, my family and all, it still hurts. Even now.” Souma looked down. “They think I died in a fire at the childcare facility I was working at, protecting the children. It’s not even really a lie. I did go to burn hell in order to protect children.”

“And I’m right there with you.” Shuusuke took Souma’s hand. “My family was taken somewhere by the witness protection program. Probably out of the country but who knows. I wasn’t told anything and I didn’t look it up. Commander Ichijima merely said they’re safe and that I have no reason to worry about them being used against SAKURA. He also said that they are different people now. I wouldn’t even recognize any of them if I saw them now. They are no longer my family. So, I guess I no longer have a family. All of us are gone. Myself included of course.”

“Peace is built on sacrifices.” Souma muttered and squeezed Shuusuke’s hand.

They looked at the grave and prayed in silence for a few minutes before taking their leave again. Even though they were pretty sure by now that nobody was following them, it was not wise for them to linger in one place for too long. Especially in broad daylight.

SAKURA were creatures of the shadows and darkness after all. They were not meant, not allowed to to step into the light. 

“Thank you for taking me here.” Shuusuke didn’t look at Souma as they made their way back to the Church. “I appreciate it.”

“No need to thank me. It’s mutual. You opened up to me, so I’m opening up to you. To share good things and bad alike is what it means to be Messiah. Right?” Souma shrugged.

“Right.”


End file.
